India’s Screen Economy Hits $12.5 Billion as Online Video Overtakes TV: Media Partners Asia

India’s screen economy, spanning television and online video, is now worth about .5 billion and could reach about .4 billion within five years, Media Partners Asia co-founder and CEO Vivek Couto said at FICCI Frames 2026 in Mumbai, Indian Television reported.

The headline number has grown from about .5 billion in 2021, but the bigger change is in its mix. Television revenue fell from about billion to .8 billion over the period, while online video nearly tripled from billion to billion, according to Medianews4u.

Advertising leads, subscriptions follow

Online video advertising overtook linear TV advertising in 2024, Couto said. Within the billion online video market, ad-supported video accounts for about billion and subscription video for about .5 billion. Premium long-form ad-supported video, at about billion, is now on a par with user-generated content for the first time.

Connected TV and retail media

• India has about 65 million active connected-TV households, and CTV advertising is worth about million.
• Legacy pay-TV subscribers have fallen from about 125 million before the pandemic to about 80 million.
• Retail media has grown from about million in 2020 to about .1 billion.

The CTV shift is one PressRoom has tracked through broadcasters such as NDTV building out a connected-TV division and BARC’s preparations to measure CTV audiences.

Room to grow

Screen spending is about 0.3% of India’s GDP, against roughly 0.8% to 1% in the US, Japan and South Korea, and per-capita spend is about compared with nearly in the US. Couto expects the market to grow about 5% a year, faster than the roughly 2% he forecast for China, Japan and South Korea. Content investment has stayed broadly flat at around billion, but online video’s share has almost tripled since 2021 to about .6 billion, overtaking television.

Couto called artificial intelligence the next major wave of change for localisation and production, while noting many applications are still early. FICCI Frames 2026 was held in Mumbai on 29–30 September, GKToday reported.